Saturday, 13 October 2012

Venice - The City of Romance

Welcome to the third and final part of my 3-part holiday post! This one is all about Venice, the city of romance!

Now I love a bit of romance (as most girls do), and I must say, if there is ever a place for romance, Venice is definitely it!

Unfortunately, we had a bit of a hiccup when we first arrived. We had spent all night on an overnight train from Rome to Venice (arriving at around 5am), including a snoring, rowdy old man who constantly went in and out of the cabin and turned on the lights, and screamed down the phone at around 3am.
Once we arrived in Venice (in the dark), we went to the hotel and found that it was shut, and not opening until 7am!!! We rang the bell and got a sleepy, angry owner on the line, telling us to come back at 7. So with heavy suitcases in hand, we set off down the road to find an open cafe. Two hours of eating pastries and drinking delicious coffee later, I was exhausted and could only think of a comfortable bed! So we headed back to the hotel to check in and sleep, only to find that, yes, we were able to check in but no, the room was not available until 2pm!!! I'm sure you can understand my aggravation, and they did not even offer a shower for us to freshen up. We left out suitcases there, and set off to wonder around the city.

The city is like a bit of a maze, so it's easy to get lost. But everywhere you go, there are lots of shops selling the famous Murano glass (made on Murano island), gorgeous masquerade ball masks, and lots of other quirky little things.
Once 2pm finally came around, we headed back to the hotel and went to sleep for about 4 hours!
The good thing of being up at around 7am, was the fact that we were able to see the gorgeous sunrise above the little streets and canals of Venice. The bad side? We were falling asleep on a bench, somewhere in the middle of Venice, watching a duck trying to steal a bin!

Overall, there are 5 other islands to see, but we only went to three of them - Murano, Burano, and Lido.
Murano was amazing, we went to see one of the many glass factories (and I have to say, I feel sorry for the people working there. Outside it was already 30 degrees C, inside it must have been so much worse!!). We watched two men making a gorgeous glass vase, and after a short while decided to have a little wonder around the island. Murano is much smaller than Venice itself, but the amount of shops selling Murano glass are multiplied by about 10.

After Murano came Burano, the island of colourful houses and lace! I have never seen such a pretty place to live, the colours of houses varied from bright blue, to green, to pink and red! The island is probably the smallest amongst this group, and it probably only takes about 10 minutes to walk from one end to the other. It has a pretty main square, where all the restaurants are. We decided to have lunch here, which was a bit of a fiasco. The amount of waiters standing outside and trying to get you to their restaurant is slightly overwhelming. We finally decided on a place and, after about 15 minutes of waiting to actually be served, decided to walk off and go to a different restaurant. Maybe they shouldn't try to get people in, but focus on the ones that are already there!
After lunch, we had a look around the shops. Here, the abundance of lace shops was pretty amazing. I really wanted to buy a nice, thin, pink scarf, but they are (obviously) very expensive, and I decided not to.

Once we left Burano, we headed to Lido. Lido is one of the bigger islands, and we had been told that the island has a beach!! We walked from one end of the island to the other (the width, not the length!) and found the beach. Unfortunately, by the time we got there it was about 6 O'clock, and getting rather cold. I tried to sunbathe, but it was pretty much impossible at that time.
I did, however, gather a few small seashells, to remind me of the island - they are currently sitting on my windowsill.

The islands took up one whole day of being in Venice, the other was spent visiting St. Marks Square, and all the sights around the square. We didn't end up going up to Campanille, as it started raining quite badly when we were in the queue outside. Maybe next time!

All in all, the holiday (despite a few minor hiccups), was super fun, but pretty exhausting.
Beach holiday next, please!